Discussion with myself, or something like that…

Memories are what the fabric of history is made of; without memories, there is no history.

Most of my family and their friends are long since gone and regrettably, they all took a wealth of information and memories with them into their graves. Now all that remains are unanswered questions… it’s too late, they are all gone.

Many World War Two veterans, like my father in law, are reluctant or too modest to tell their tale and soon their voices too will disappear without leaving anything behind, their stories, gone forever.

At times we tell bits and pieces and when we do we frequently begin a story with the usual, “I remember…” And then one day I thought, well if I or you or whoever remembers it, then for Heaven’s sake write it down before we don’t remember it anymore or it all goes six feet under. Ultimately we are not doing anyone a favour by remaining silent; unless of course people are looking at the state of their nails and are in danger of falling asleep then it may be better to change the subject.

There are of course subjects that still today can generate controversy or make people ill at ease, or they simply don’t care… like the Vietnam War. It’s too weird to them, too real or it’s outside their comfort zone; preferably they’d rather we remain silent and don’t mention it.

Then one day I thought of something Richard Branson sometimes says at meetings, and I quote: “Screw it, let’s just do it”. How right he is and I began to write down bits and pieces about the war.

There never was a real intention to write a book about our time in Vietnam; the intention was merely to leave something behind in particular for my daughter should she ever want to ask questions when I’m long since gone. My voice may be silent by then but at least, I will have written it down. From there on they can do what they want with it, including making the fire and burn it. The first time I, or rather we began working on this book was sometime around 2005. There were many long-time gaps and at some point, I dropped it all together for at least three years.

In the beginning, I used the “first-person tense”, or point of view. Quite soon, however, especially when A Voice From the Past (The Real Girl Who Ran With Black Tigers) began to contribute with her own memories it all became too close for comfort and we switched to the “third person” and camouflaged it in the form of a novel.  It did not really change the content, on the contrary, it allowed us to be at times embarrassing open and honest and say what we would probably not have said using the “first-person" tense. We all had our own reasons for playing a part in a war that did not concern us. My girlfriend Marlyne (not her real name) had her own reasons for ending up in Vietnam – and she tells her tale with blatant honesty somewhere in the book. In the end, we were more than just lovers. We were also brother and sister in arms, psyching each other up along a slow road of self-destruction… but that didn’t prevent us from laughing and loving.

After several years and various interruptions, including a return to Cambodia and Vietnam with my wife and daughter in 2014, the book, that began its life as the “Lethal Beauty of War” had finally found its definitive form; we called it: “The Girl Who Ran With Black Tigers”, and when it was done I never wanted to write again.

After three years, however, I joined a little writing group and began writing short stories, or random bits of memories from the past, childhood memories, my days in the steamy jungles of the Amazon or Vietnam or my flying days in the U.S. or the desert in faraway places; sometimes only one page, sometimes longer. Then one day there was a prompt entitled: "Conversation with a Ghost". No one took the bait… but I did. I immediately saw both the humour but also the challenge in writing a complete fantasy, or at least, that’s how it began.

Most of my stories are based on direct personal experience and ghosts are not one of them; yet somehow there was something not entirely unfamiliar about this particular ghost… I may have caught only a fleeting glimpse of the real spirit wandering through the pages but I recognised her nevertheless. In the end, all she wanted was to be heard and then to be set free and for that to happen, we first have to listen.

It's called: The Miller's Wife - the Ghost I Loved, it's a much-loved story; I hope you will enjoy it too.

James Delahaye.